Murder on Safari (16 page)

“The evening that we came here from Marula.

The trackers did not speak before, because they were afraid that Geydi would make trouble for them with the white men. But they told me,

because we are of the same tribe, and they believe that you are a police bwana. Timburu are very bad men. They are very fierce and Wabenda are afraid of them.”

“Tell these friends of yours to search near the camp,” Vachell instructed, “and to come to me if they find where the Timburu are hidden.”

“Yes, bwana. There is another thing.” Something in Kimotho’s voice made Vachell suspect

that the native was indulging in one of his

favourite tricks, that of keeping his titbit until the 158

last.

“Tell me then, quickly. I have work to do.”

Kimotho gathered up the dirty plates and

stacked them on a tray. His manner said, as

plainly as if he had spoken, “Yeah? So have I.”

“You have told me to ask which of the white

people left camp yesterday morning. I have told you what I have found. First you and the

memsahib who flies above in the bird, then bwana Rutley and the dead memsahib, then bwana

Danny and the white man who walks like a

baboon. Then bwana Rutley came back alone and climbed the hill with a gun to look Ч”

“Yes, I know all that,” Vachell interupted.

Africa was teaching him patience, but sometimes he found native repetitions too much. Kimotho paid no attention.

“To look for meat,” he went on calmly. “I was washing your shirts in the river, so that I could not see what happened in camp. But yesterday I

talked to one of the men who cuts firewood, and he told me this. He was coming back to camp by the road that goes to Malabeya, carrying firewood; and when he had almost reached camp, he met a car, coming fast but quietly, so fast that he had to jump in the bushes to avoid it. He was annoyed because he dropped some of the wood, and then heЧ”

“God damn it,” Vachell exclaimed, “why didn’t you tell me this before? Who was driving?”

“Geydi, bwana. He was by himself, driving very 159

fast and away from camp.”

“What time was this?” Kimotho shrugged his

shoulders. “This wood-cutter is a savage; he does not know times. He said that the sun was not yet overhead. Perhaps it was ten o’clock, perhaps eleven. Later, that afternoon, Geydi found this wood-boy and forbade him to tell what he had

seen. Geydi threatened to tie the wood-boy up at night with a dead zebra, so that the lions would eat him slowly, if he spoke.”

“But he told you?”

“Yes, bwana. I told him that the police have

eyes like vultures and see all things, and if he did not tell everything you would tie him to stakes driven into an ant-heap until he was eaten alive by biting ants, beginning with his eyes. He is afraid of Geydi, but now he is still more afraid of the police.”

“Kimotho,” Vachell exclaimed, “I have told

you a thousand times that you are not to tell such lies!”

Kimotho smiled cheerfully, hitched up his

shorts, and lifted the tray. “I know,” he said, “but I have also promised him a shilling. Give it to me and I will take it to him.”

Vachell sighed, took a shilling out of his pocket and threw it on to the tray. “News is cheap here,”

he said. “Find out if any boy has heard a rifle speak far away from the camp, and tell them to listen for one to-day. And bring hot water at once.”

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Kimotho stalked off into the sunlight, rattling the tray. Vachell extinguished his cigarette, and started to assemble his razor, a puzzled frown on his face. It was hard to piece together all the odd, seemingly unconnected bits of information. One thing, at least, seemed clear: the Ford saloon that had made the unrecorded twenty-nine-mile

journey on the morning of the murder had had

Geydi for its driver.

Suddenly an idea came to him, and he whistled softly, standing stock-still in the tent with the razor in his hand. The idea expanded into a theory while he stood there, as a Japanese paper flower, of the kind that street-selters used to offer, expands from a speck into full-blown blossom

when you drop it into a tumbler of water. He sat down abruptly on the bed, pulled out his

sketchmap from his pocket, and scribbled a rough calculation of times based on the movements of a herd of elephants.

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FR1;FR2;CHAPTER

SIXTEEN

A voice said “Hodi” and the tent darkened as

Rutley’s big form loomed in the opening. Vachell had just finished shaving. He put down the razor, and said, “Come in.”

“I came to ask what you want done about this —

well, about Sir Gordon,” Rutley said. He lowered himself on to the bed, took off his cork helmet, and wiped his face with a large silk handkerchief.

His curly black hair was as well combed and shiny as ever, and his moustache neatly clipped. “This camp’s turned into a ruddy morgue, if you ask me,” he went on. “Now I’ve had the job of undertaker shoved on to me. This safari ought to have

taken an embalmer along. I suppose I’d better rig up another coffin. It’s lucky they keep pace with the gin, or we’d be running out of cases.”

His attempt to be facetious sounded forced and unconvincing. Vachell thought that he could

detect a trace of uneasiness beneath the chauffeur’s cocky manner. “You’d better make another

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coffin right away,” he said. “After that, it’s up to Lord Baradale. I’ll help you fix the body when the coffin’s ready.”

“Okay,” Rutley said. He looked curiously at

Vachell’s face and arms. “You had a narrow shave this morning. Mrs Da vis says it was the buff I fired at yesterday. That correct?”

Vachell nodded, and began to comb his hair.

“I’d no idea I hit the bastard, honestly. I’d have warned you if I’d thought I had. It was bad luck about Sir Gordon Ч though I can’t say I think he’ll be missed, to be honest. I can’t stick these she-men, especially when they think they’re Lord God Almighty, like he did. Still, it’s a bit

awkward, a thing like that happening, especially with Lord Baradale and Mr de Mare away.”

“You’re telling me,” Vachell said.

“A bit awkward for you, too. You thought I

shot Lady Baradale, didn’t you? You wouldn’t

believe I’d gone up the hill to shoot a buck. Well, I can’t blame you altogether. I’ll admit it did look a bit look a bit fishy. That’s why I didn’t let on about it to start with. Now you know I was

speaking the honest-to God truth. I don’t know who shot Lady Baradale. All I know is, it wasn’t me. The only thing I get out of it is the sack, and I’ll tell you frankly, as billets go, this was a soft one.”

Vachell decided that he’d had enough. He

swung round suddenly, and looked straight at the chauffeur’s face. “Rutley,” he said, “what have 163

you done with the letters you took last night??”

Rutley’s face was wooden. He stared back for

several seconds, and then asked: “What letters?”

in an expressionless voice.

“You know what letters,” Vachell said. “Your

letters to Lady Baradale. The ones you took out of her tent last night. The ones that told her you were through, that the affair was all washed up, that if she tried to stop you marrying Paula, you’d rub her out. The letters that gave you a motive for putting her out of the way.”

Rutley jumped up from the bed, and his sunhelmet rolled across the floor of the tent. His face was flushed and his fists clenched.

“Blast your bloody eyes, stop that!” he shouted.

“You’re a goddamned liar, that’s what you are!

You know I didn’t kill her, and you’re trying to frame me because you can’t find out who did. By God, I’d like to — ” He broke off, half choking with anger, his face dark and menacing. “Oh, hell, it’s a waste of time talking,” he said, in a calmer tone. He stooped to pick up his hat. “You flatfoots are all the same. You make a mess of your

job, and then you try to take it out on some one else. Well, carry on. Why don’t you start by

finding those jewels? That’s what you came here for.”

it

“All I have to do is to dig up every inch of sod two feet down within a radius of five miles of the camp, and put it through a sieve, and the stuffs mine,” Vachell said. “Sure, that’s easy. Now I’ll 164

tell one. Lady Baradale kept the key of the safe in her pocket all day and under her pillow all night.

You’re the only guy in this camp who was liable to be fooling around her pillow and no questions asked. You took the jewels, and you took the

letters, and Ч “

“And you’ll take a sock on the jaw!” Rutley

shouted. “You’ve no right to accuse me like that!

You pick on me because I’m just a poor bloody mechanic, not fit to eat a meal with their high and mighty lordships in the west-end part of the camp.

Well, I’m not going to be the goat, not this time.

You think the members of the English ruling

classes couldn’t murder or steal, don’t you?

They’re all too much the gentleman, aren’t they Ч

wouldn’t ever do a thing like that. Oh, no. Well, you’re bloody well wrong. I can tell you Ч “

Rutley’s voice tailed off into silence. He stood in the middle of the tent panting slightly, his face thrust forward, in an attitude that reminded

Vachell of an angry bull thwarted by a wire fence.

He looked uncomfortable, as though he had said too much. “Anyway, you won’t find the swag in my direction,” he concluded. “I haven’t got it, and I didn’t pinch those letters from out of the safe, either.”

Vachell’s eyes, narrowed into slits, gleamed

with triumph. “Just a minute, Rutley,” he said quietly. “I said you’d taken those letters out of Lady Baradale’s tent. I didn’t mention any safe.

Just how did you know they were in the safe.?”

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“I’ve had enough of this,” Rutley said. His

voice was only just under control and the muscles of his face were twitching. “I’m not going to stand here and let you trip me up with your

bloody theories. Take back what you said, you son of aЧ”

“Take it easy,” Vachell said sharply. “Right

now you haven’t any spanner in your hand.”

Rutley lunged forward and shot out his right fist at the same moment as Vachell jumped to one side with the agility of a klipspringer, bringing the tent pole in between them. Then Vachell stepped

forward and slammed his right fist into the side of Rutley’s head. It smacked against the chauffeur’s temple and caught him off balance, knocking him sprawling on to the bed. He sat up and shook his head like a dog coming out of a pool of water.

“All right,” he said savagely. “You’re a bloody cop, and if I knock that grinning face of yours to blazes you’ll send me to jug. You win this time, but don’t think I’ll forget it. I’ll get you one day, so help me, and when I’ve finished with your face your own mother won’t ever recognize it again.”

“Thanks for the warning,” Vachell said. “Next time, I’d advise a wrench. A spanner’s a bit on the light side, I guess.”

Rutley scowled again, grabbed his helmet, and stalked out of the tent. Vachell sighed, and called to Kimotho for a glass of water. All this he-man stuff, he decided, was hot, hard work. His head throbbed, his mouth felt dry and stringy, and his 166

side ached. He sat down in a campchair, and noticed that his hand was shaking as he lit a match.

A tide of despondency crept over him as he

sipped the water. The case was all round him, all over him, and the farther he went the more

confusing everything became. He couldn’t even clear up one simple problem: who had knocked

him out the previous night in Lady Baradale’s tent. He’d tried to bluff Rutley into believing that he’d given himself away over the letters; but it was a thin bluff. The chances were that Rutley had known where the letters were kept ever since he had started to write them. And there might have been other papers in the safe that other people wanted.

And then there were those walnuts. They were

like a signature Ч surely not Rutley’s; they didn’t fit. There was a touch of macabre humour about them, of boastful contempt for the things that organized society respected: the dead, the panoply of burial, the enforcement of law. Nuts to the bunch of them, the signature said; nuts to it all.

“To hell with the nuts” Vachell said aloud,

“I’m going nuts myself, with that crazy gag on my mind,” He jumped to his feet, shouted for

Kimotho, and gave instructions for Geydi to be summoned to the tent.

лT╗

It was fifteen minutes before the Somali

appeared, walking slowly, and dressed in a newly pressed white suit with a green open-necked shirt 167

and a red tarboosh. He looked, as usual, sulky and supercilious. His lithe body swayed gracefully as he walked, and his whole appearance reminded

Vachell of a young poplar in a wind. His face was the colour of milk-chocolate; effeminate in its full lips, big eyes and soft skin, yet with a hint of the underlying ruthlessness and fanaticism latent in Somali men. He stood erect, his hands hanging loosely at his sides, and said: “Yes, bwana,” in a tired, low voice, as though the effort required to speak distinctly was more trouble than the occasion warranted. He had a trick of speaking almost

without moving his lips.

“First, Geydi,” Vachell said, “there is the

matter of the gun that disappeared yesterday from bwana Lord’s tent. When did you see it last?”

Geydi paused for so long before answering that Vachell began to think that he was going to ignore the question altogether. Then he mumbled: “I

don’t know. Perhaps the day before yesterday,”

and was silent again, as though the effort had exhausted him.

“Did you see it yesterday morning, when you

made the bed?”

Geydi shook his head.

“Was it stolen, then, in the night?”

“I do not know,”

Vachell turned to Kimotho, and said: “Fetch

the two trackers who saw the Timburu, and the wood-boy who saw Geydi in a car.” Kimotho

disappeared at the double, and Vachell tried again.